arlie. Froze, blinded by the sudden darkness, paralyzed by terror and the crashing knowledge. He wasn’t after Beverly, he was after her—!!!and he was right outside.

She closed her eyes, squeezing them tight, trying to hurry her night vision. She should try to get out, but by which door, front or back? Or was he at a window? Which one?!!!Which one?

—Gently he cut a screen, snipping the tiny strands one by one—Desperately she fought off the vision. Oh, God, she wouldn’t let herself be swamped by the vision.

She would be helpless. But she had never been able to resist one for long, never been able to block it, or control it. They rolled over her like tidal waves.

—He knew she was in there. He could feel her, the bitch. He could already taste the triumph, the power—”No,” Marlie moaned in a whisper. Desperately she summoned up an image of the mental door she had learned how to open and close. All she had to do was close it, and keep him on the other side.

—He’d see how smart she was when she felt the blade biting into her—It was washing over her in black waves. The evil was so strong, she couldn’t breathe. He was so close, the power of it was crushing her. She couldn’t fight him off.

—The damn lock on the window wouldn’t budge. White-hot fury roared through him at this delay. Snarling, he smashed his gloved fist into the glass—

She heard the crash and tinkle of breaking glass, but the vision was roaring through her, blotting out everything else, and she couldn’t tell where it was coming from. It could have been right behind her, but he was sucking all the strength out of her, and she couldn’t even turn around.!!!Dane. Oh, God, Dane!

She didn’t want him to have to see this.

As soon as he got into his car, Dane radioed in and told the dispatcher to send a patrol car to his house immediately.

“Ten-four,” said the dispatcher. “It’ll take ten, fifteen minutes, though. It’s a busy night.”

“Do it faster than that,” Dane said, iron in his voice.

“I’ll try. Depends on when a patrolman gets free.”

Dane hesitated, reluctant to leave Marlie alone for that long, but his job was to be on the crime scene, copycat or not. The detectives who had worked the other scenes had to make the call, decide if it was the same perp. He had given her his pistol, and a patrolman would be there soon. She would be okay.

He told himself that for several miles, but finally pulled to the side of the street and stopped. This didn’t feel right, damn it. Something was wrong. He felt a sense of dread that had grown stronger with each passing mile and minute, but he couldn’t pin down the cause.

It was a copycat killing, no doubt about that. It wasn’t unusual; they had already had one. But something was!!!wrong.

He keyed the mike. “Dispatch, this is Hollister. Has a patrolman gotten to my house yet?”

“Not yet. A car is on its way.”

Frustration welled in him. “Any further information on that knifing that was just called in?”

“No further—wait.” Dane listened to static, then dispatch came back on the air. “That’s affirmative. A squad car is on the scene, and the patrolman just radioed in. It looks like a false alarm.”

Dane’s sense of dread increased. His mind raced as he went through the angles. “Dispatch, was it a male or a female who called in the initial report?”

“A male.”

“Shit!” He keyed the mike again. “Dispatch, contact the stakeout immediately! Verify that everything is okay. The false alarm may have been deliberate.”

“Affirmative. Stand by.”

Dane waited tensely in the dark car, sweat rolling down his face. Within a minute his radio crackled. “No problems at the stakeout, Dane. Everything’s as quiet as a graveyard.”

He shook his head. There was trouble and he knew it. But where?!!!Where?

The false alarm had been deliberate, in an effort to draw off Marlie’s protection. But Beverly had taken Marlie’s place, and the ploy hadn’t worked—

He froze, horror exploding in his brain. It had worked all too well. Marlie!

More glass shattered as he punched the window again. Desperately Marlie pictured the door, pictured the vision pressing against it, all black, loathsome evil. She pictured herself shoving against the door, forcing it shut, closing out the vision. She had to control it; she would die if she didn’t. Her only chance was to control it, as she had the knowing.

She was stronger now than she had been before. She could do it.

The pistol. It had been beside her on the couch. She opened her eyes and lurched in the direction of the couch, but the vision had already sapped her strength, and her legs gave way beneath her. She fell heavily to the floor, but her outstretched hand brushed the couch, and she forced herself to her hands and knees, crawling to it and groping along the cushions for the pistol.

There it was, cold and heavy, reassuring in her hand. With wildly trembling fingers she fumbled the safety off.

—He was in. It wouldn’t be long now. The knife glinted in his hand, long and lethal, the blade honed to a razor’s edge—

The door! Mentally she slammed it shut once more. Keep him out. She had to keep him out.

She could hear her own breath coming in strangled sobs. Quiet. She had to be quiet. Weakly she crawled toward the corner, to put a wall at her back so he couldn’t come at her from behind. The darkness in the house was almost total, with the blinds closed. She had the advantage there; she knew the house, knew where she was. He had to hunt her. She had to be very, very quiet.

Keep the door closed.

But where was he? She couldn’t hear over the roaring in her ears, deafened by the thunder of her own blood racing through her veins.

She used both hands to steady the heavy pistol. Dane. Dane, who never went anywhere unarmed.!!!Thank you, Dane, for this chance. I love you.!!!Where was he?

She closed her eyes and mentally opened the door a crack.

—Where was she, the bitch? He could turn on the flashlight, but not yet, not yet. So she thought she could hide, did she? Didn’t she know how much he enjoyed the chase? Of course she did. Sweet bitch. Was she in the bathroom? He pushed the door open. The white fixtures gleamed in the darkness like enamel ghosts. No bitch here—

She slammed the door. She could feel the pressure of his mental energy, pushing against her. She opened her eyes and forced herself to look toward the hall where the bathroom was.!!!Don’t stare, Marlie. Don’t let yourself stare. You won’t see him if you do. Keep your eyes moving, don’t let them fix. You’ll see his movement.

Was that him? Was that a darker shadow, coming toward her? She didn’t dare open the door again, not now. If it was him, he was too close. He would be on her before she could react. But was he really there, or was it her imagination?

A bright light exploded in her face, blinding her, and a ghastly voice crooned, “Well, hellooo there.”

She pulled the trigger.

Several cars converged on the house almost simultaneously. Dane had given orders for them to go in with lights flashing and siren blaring, hoping against hope that they would be in time and scare him off. He drove like a maniac, praying as he had never prayed before. He didn’t care if they missed this chance to catch him.!!!Please, God, let them scare him off. Don’t let him be in the house. Don’t let him have already been and gone. God, please. Not Marlie.

He slammed the gear into park, the car rocking violently on its springs. He was out and running before the motion stopped. The house was dark. God, no.

Something heavy hit Dane in the back, sending him sprawling on the ground. He roiled to his feet with a savage snarl, his fist drawn back. Trammell picked himself up, as fast as Dane, and grabbed his arm. “Get control of yourself!” Trammell roared, his face as savage as Dane’s. “You won’t help her by going in blind! Do it the way you know it’s supposed to be done!”

Uniformed officers were swarming around the house, surrounding it. All Dane could think of was Marlie inside. He shook Trammell off and plunged at the door. It was locked. He threw himself at it like a maddened animal, the force of his weight making it shudder in the frame. It was a solid door, reinforced with steel. The dead-bolt lock was one of the best made. It held. The hinges didn’t. The screws ripped out of the wood with a tortured shriek, metal twisting.

Seeing he couldn’t stop Dane, Trammell added his considerable strength to the task, and helped him wrench the door out of the frame. Hoarsely screaming Marlie’s name, Dane pitched himself into the dark bowels of the house.

He stumbled over something soft and heavy, and crashed to the floor. His heart stopped beating, for a long, agonized moment that froze in time.

“Oh, God,” he said, the voice not recognizable as his. “Get a light.”

One of the patrol officers took his long, heavy flashlight out of his belt and thumbed the switch. The powerful beam illuminated Dane, crouched on the floor with a look of frozen horror on his face, and Trammell, who looked almost as bad. In the center of the beam sprawled a black-clad figure, the shaven skull gleaming dully. He was on his back, and his sightless eyes stared upward. The stench of blood and death was overpowering. A black pool of blood had gathered around the body.

“Dane.” The almost soundless whisper raised the hairs on their arms. “Dane, I’m here.”

The flashlight beam swung wildly toward the corner, and Marlie flinched from the light, closing her eyes and turning her head away. Dark wetness glistened on the white of her shirt. She still held the pistol, both hands clasped around it.

Dane couldn’t manage to get to his feet. He crawled to her, his mind still unable to believe that she was alive. He cupped her cheek in a shaking hand, and smoothed her hair back from her face. “Baby. Oh, God, honey.”

“He cut me,” she said, as if apologizing. “I shot him, but he didn’t stop. He just kept coming. So I kept shooting.”

“Good,” he said with barely restrained savagery. His hands were trembling wildly, but with the utmost tenderness he lowered her to the floor. “Just lie down, honey. Let me see how bad you’re hurt.”

“I don’t think it’s serious,” she said judiciously. “It’s the top of my shoulder, and my left side. But it’s just cuts; he didn’t stab me.”

He was barely holding himself together. Only the knowledge that she needed him now kept him from throwing himself on the body and tearing it to pieces. God! This was the second time in her life a madman had attacked her with a knife. How could she be so calm, when he was shaking apart?

“He cut the wiring,” she was saying. Suddenly she sounded exhausted. “I’m very tired. If you don’t mind, I’ll tell you all about it later.”

“Sure, baby.” He pressed the heel of his palm over the oozing cut in her side. “Go to sleep. I’ll be with you when you wake up.”

She gave a little sigh, and her heavy eyelids closed. Dane was aware of the house filling with people, but he didn’t look up.

“Dane.” It was Trammell, kneeling beside him. “The medics are here, buddy. You need to move back so they can help her.”

“I’m stopping the bleeding,” he said in a hoarse voice.

“I know. It’s almost stopped. She’s going to be all right, partner. Everything’s going to be okay.” Trammell wrapped his arms around him, easing him away from Marlie. The medics moved to take his place. “We’ll go to the hospital with her, but she’s going to be fine. I promise.”

Dane closed his eyes and let Trammell lead him away.

“I really do feel well enough to go home,” Marlie said the next morning. She yawned. “It’s just that I’m tired from fighting off the vision.”

“And from loss of blood,” Dane said. “Maybe tomorrow.”

She was propped up in bed, and except for the thickness of the bandages on top of her shoulder and at her waist, it was difficult to tell there was anything wrong with her, though to Dane’s critical eye she was still far too pale.

He had been at the hospital with her all night. If he lived to be a hundred and fifty, he’d never forget the absolute, bone-chilling terror of those minutes when he had realized that he had been lured away, and left Marlie unprotected. It had taken him a lifetime to get back to her, and cost him another lifetime in the effort to get into the house. The hospital had been a zoo, with cops everywhere and reporters fighting to get in to talk to Marlie, and Dane had been totally unable to cope with it. All he had been able to do, once the doctors had let him get to her again, was hold her hand and try to reassure himself that she was really all right.

Trammell had taken over, he had handled the reporters, categorically denying them access to Marlie’s room but promising a news conference later in the morning. He had deflected Bonness and Chief Champlin away from Dane. He had called Grace, who had brought fresh clothes and toiletries for both Dane and Marlie. Dane had showered and shaved, but the haggard lines in his face revealed the toll the night had taken on him. If it hadn’t been for Trammell, he wouldn’t have made it through the night.

Trammell had been there for most of the night, too, but he had left around dawn and just returned. He was impeccably dressed, as always, though he, too, showed the signs of a sleepless night. Grace had remained with them.

Marlie pressed the button that moved the head of the bed to a more upright position. She truly did feel well enough to go home; the cuts were sore, and she had to be careful when she moved, but all in all she wasn’t in any undue pain. She was alive. The heavy sense of evilness that had been pressing down on her for weeks was gone. The sun seemed brighter, the air fresher.

“I’ve told you everything that happened last night,” she said. “Now I want to know what you’ve found out this morning.”

Dane smiled at her reassuringly normal tone. “Don’t look at me. I haven’t left this place. I don’t know anything.”

Grace stretched out her long legs. “Yes, Alex, spill your guts.”

Trammell propped himself against the windowsill. “We found his car about two blocks away, and ran the license plate. His name was Carroll Janes; he moved here from Pittsburgh about five months ago. Pittsburgh PD have several unsolved murders that fit the bill. We searched his apartment and found a blond wig he evidently wore all the time, except when he was killing. He worked at Danworth’s department store, in customer service. Evidently that’s how he picked his victims. If anyone gave him a hard time— bingo.”

“That was the tie,” Dane murmured. “They all shopped at Danworth’s. I remember Jackie Sheets’s friend saying that she had been upset about a blouse that came apart, or something like that. God, it was right there in front of me. I even thought that they shopped at the same place, but that just about everyone in the city did, too.”

“Don’t beat yourself up over it,” Marlie advised tartly. “You aren’t clairvoyant, you know.” After a startled second, he chuckled. He was looking better, she decided, that stark look fading as he recovered from the shock.

“Carroll Janes,” Grace said. “That’s a strange name for a man.”

“No joke. That’s why we didn’t turn him up on those lists we were running. His name was crossed out because it looked like a woman’s name.” Trammell sounded disgusted at that oversight. “We don’t have much background on him yet. We may never know what made him tick. I don’t know if it even matters. A subhuman son of a bitch like that doesn’t deserve to live.”

Marlie saw Dane flinch. He was having a harder time handling the night’s events than she was. He deeply regretted that she had been touched by such ugly violence, but in an odd way she felt stronger. She wasn’t elated that she had killed a man, but neither was she consumed by guilt. She had done what was necessary. If she had hesitated, she would be dead now. She had controlled the vision, and this time she had won. Carroll Janes was dead; Marilyn Elrod and Nadine Vinick and Jackie Sheets, and all of the other women he had killed, finally had their justice.

Dane picked up her hand and played with her fingers, his eyes closing as he felt again the overwhelming relief that she was all right.

Grace elbowed Trammell. “We have to go now,” she said. “I have to get ready for work.”

“I’ll be back this afternoon,” Trammell added. “Call me if you need me before then.”

“Okay,” Dane agreed. After they left, he walked to the door and leaned out to get the attention of the uniformed officer who stood guard there. “No visitors,” he said. “Not even the mayor. No one.”

“I may have trouble keeping the docs out, Hollister,” the officer warned.

“Well, maybe them. But knock first.” He closed the door and went back to Marlie’s bedside. He stroked her face, smoothed her hair.

She reached up and touched his cheek. “I really am all right. And I’d much rather be at home than here.”

He turned his head to kiss her fingers. “Just be patient, okay? If the doctor wants to watch you for another twenty-four hours, he must have a reason. Let me be certain you’re okay before you leave. I need that.”

There was naked emotion in his face. Dane was wide open, not bothering to guard himself. After what he had been through, he would never again try to control his feelings for her. He had almost lost her the night before; life was too short, too uncertain, to do anything but live it to the fullest.

His expression was serious as he smoothed her hair away from her face. “We didn’t finish getting things ironed out between us last night.”

“No, everything got a little hectic there, didn’t it?”

“Are you still mad at me?”

A little smile curved her mouth. “No.”

“I swear to God I didn’t string you along just to stay on top of the situation. The only thing I thought about being on top of was you.”

She snorted. “Gosh, that’s romantic.” But the smile remained.

“I don’t know how to be romantic. All I know is I want you, and I can’t let you go. I’ve never run into this type of situation before, so I probably messed up in the way I handled it. I wanted to take my time, see how things developed. I didn’t want to rush you, or put pressure on you while all of this other mess was going on. You had enough to worry about.”

She bit her lip, bemused by his words. Ye gods, maybe Trammell was right; maybe Dane really was too hardheaded to know when he was in love, or that a woman would reasonably expect him to say so. She took a deep breath, conscious of how much she wanted everything to go right this time. Maybe he wasn’t the only one who had been a little too cautious; maybe she needed to encourage him more.

“Is sex all you want?” she asked, tension invading her as she waited for his answer.

“Hell, no!” he said explosively. “Honey, tell me what you need. I can do something about it if you’ll tell me, but don’t leave me in the dark like this. What can I do to convince you of how I feel about you?”

She drew back in the hospital bed, giving him an incredulous look. “Convince me? Dane, you’ve never told me to begin with! I don’t have any idea how you feel!”

It was his turn to stare incredulously. “What the hell do you mean, you don’t have any idea how I feel?”

She rolled her eyes beseechingly toward the heavens.

“Lord help me, the man’s as thick as a tree. How am I supposed to know if you don’t tell me? I’ve told you time and again that I can’t read you! Say it in plain English, Dane. Do you love me? That’s what I need to know.”

“Of course I love you!” he roared, his temper flashing.

“Then say so!”

“I love you, damn it!” He surged to his feet and stood over her bed, hands on hips. “What about you? Are we in this together, or am I soloing?”

She thought of punching him, but decided not to put that much strain on her stitches. She contented herself with saying, “No, you aren’t soloing.”

“Then say it!”

“I love you, damn it!” She said it just as belligerently as he had.

His chest heaved with the force of his breathing as they faced each other down in silence. Finally the tension eased out of his coiled muscles. “That’s settled, then.” He sat down again.

“What’s settled?” she challenged.

“That I love you and you love me.”

“So what do we do? Call a truce?”

He shook his head and picked up her hand again. “What we do is get married.” He pressed a kiss to her fingertips. “We aren’t going to wait six months, either, like some people I know. It’ll probably be this weekend. No longer than a week.”

Marlie’s breath caught, and a luminous smile broke over her face like sunrise. “I’m sure we can manage it by this weekend,” she said.

He wanted to fold her in his arms, but he was too afraid of hurting her. He looked at her, and was amazed at how calm she was. She had been stalked by a killer, had emptied a pistol into him, and she seemed so... peaceful. Not even getting engaged had shaken that serenity.

He began shaking, as he had several times that night. “I’m sorry,” he blurted, for the fifteenth time, his expression telling her where his thoughts had gone. “God, baby, I messed up bad. I never intended for you to be in danger. I don’t know how he found you.”

Her blue eyes were even more bottomless than usual. “Maybe it was meant. Maybe it was my fault that he found me. I should have gone to a safe house. Maybe, at the end, he could sense me the way I could sense him. Maybe I was the only one who had a chance against him, because I could tell where he was, what he was doing. There are too many maybes; we’ll never know for certain. But I’m okay, Dane, in every way.”

“I love you. When I thought he had you—” His voice cracked. Suddenly he couldn’t stand it. With exquisite care he gathered her up in his arms and lifted her from the bed, then sat down and cradled her on his lap, his face buried in her hair.

“I know. I love you too.” She didn’t protest that the action jarred her shoulder, or that he was holding her too tightly for comfort. She needed that contact, the security and warmth of his embrace. She nestled against him. “Dane?”

“Hmmm?”

“There is one thing.”

He raised his head. “What?”

“Are you certain you want to marry me?”

“Damn right I am. What brought this on?”

“I know how uncomfortable it makes you that I am what I am. And I can’t marry you without telling you everything. I’ve pretty much recovered all my abilities. In fact, I’m better at it than I was before, because now I can control it.”

He didn’t hesitate. The only way to have Marlie was to take her as she was, psychic abilities and all. “But you can’t read me at all, right?”

“Nope. You’re the most thickheaded man I’ve ever seen. It’s such a relief.”

He grinned, and brushed a kiss across her temple. “It wouldn’t make any difference anyway. I’m going to marry you, no matter what.”

“But I can check up on you,” she admitted, “if you have a bad day, you won’t be able to hide it from me, the way cops usually do with their wives. There won’t be any tucking it away in a corner of your mind, because I’ll already know what happened.”

“I can live with that.” Easily, he realized. At this point he could probably live with her even if she were a card-carrying swami and rode a magic carpet. “If you can handle being a cop’s wife, I can be a psychic’s husband. What the hell; how rough can it be?”